While cognitive complexity can describe many things, the RTD approach to cognitive complexity is firmly grounded in the assessment industry’s dominant model, Norman Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (wDOK). As we read it, the central thrust of wDOK is the continuum of deliberation-to-automaticity, with the greater cognitive work of more deliberative cognitive paths being more cognitively complex, and the lesser work of greater automaticity—often earned through practice and greater proficiency—being less cognitively complex. (No, this is not the only way to think about cognitive complexity, but we based our rDOK approach on wDOK because it is so dominant in the industry. See our writing on rDOK (revised Depth of Knowledge) to examine how we think this plays out in the various content areas.)
One of our colleagues, a former science educator and now science assessment expert, wisely asked about the relationship between uncertainty and deliberation. Well, there are many kinds of uncertainty, and not all of them are tied to the kind of deliberation that DOK is about. Nonetheless, uncertainty often does lead to greater deliberation and a more cognitive complex path.
There is the uncertainty of not even knowing where to start, or whether to start. That is not deliberation. That is just indecision—often paralyzing indecision. It is a general, and common, nervousness that can be a barrier to focused effort. Teachers and tutors are familiar with this and an important part of their role is to help their students to develop the confidence to overcome this kind of uncertainty and take that first step.
There is the uncertainty of lack of confidence in one’s execution, which can be entirely rational. Perhaps more people should have this, as it leads to various sorts of proofreading. That is, they review their work for little mistakes in execution, even though this does not include rethinking the whole approach they took. Math teachers say “Check your work,” meaning the the mathematics equivalent of proofreading. This uncertainly is not advanced deliberation, and the greater work it prompts is not indicative of great cognitive complexity. Rather, it is essentially repetition of earlier work.
There is the uncertainty of not being sure what to do next when in the middle of the problem, or even not being sure what to do first. That is, once past the paralysis that keeps one from even being able to truly try to make sense of the task, one might still be unsure about the first step. This question of “What do I do next?” is a form of deliberation. It can be answered simply by trying to remember the next step in a (perhaps poorly) memorized procedure. It might instead be answered by trying to (re)discover or (re)invent a good next step. This latter response constitutes reasoning and the kind of deliberation at the focus of both wDOK and rDOK. Indeed, uncertainty is often what creates the opportunity for deliberation.
An even more careful deliberation can be prompted by initial uncertainty. One might try to figure out more than just the initial step, instead trying to work out a longer plan before diving into the work of the first step. This is not necessarily a different kind of uncertainty than mentioned above, but one’s response to it can be less or more carefully and deliberative—and therefore more cognitively complex.
There is also a second kind of uncertainty after completing a task. One might ask oneself, “Was that even the right thing to do?” and revisit/question the reasoning that led to the steps taken. This differs from merely proofreading/checking one’s work, though both are prompted by uncertainty after the fact. Proofreading revisits execution, whereas this revisiting of reasoning is more cognitively complex.
Of course, one might be uncertain before a task and i) carefully develop a plan to help break through initial paralysis, ii) execute the plan, iii) revisit the reasoning of the plan but decide it was a good approach, and iv) when check one’s work. Uncertainly can drive all of this. All of that careful deliberation can still lead to bad plans poorly executed with errors that were missed when proofreading. No amount of deliberation can guarantee success, and the highly proficient can often achieve success without any conscious deliberation.
Uncertainty can be a product of a range of factors. It might come from genuine ignorance or other lack of necessary skills. It can from insufficient practice or arise due to being faced with novel situations. It can be a product poor instruction or lack of effort to learn by a students. Some people are by character more confident and some are by character less confident—and either be justified or not in this. But regardless of the source of uncertainty, the question of cognitive complexity (i.e., either rDOK or wDOK) is answered by looking at the response to uncertainty.
On the other hand, a lack of certainty obviously inhibits deliberation. It makes deliberation of any sort far less likely, which is often detrimental to producing high quality work. Ideally, intellectual humility would put an upper limit on certainty and lower limit on deliberation of various sorts.